Autumn is here, and unless you’re preparing for an exciting winter near the equator, or love the snow, it is a sad time knowing it is the beginning of a season of fewer days outdoors. It was the Autumn of 1884 when Ulysses Grant went to his doctor for the pain he felt in his throat. He was living in New York City at the time. For Grant, this season ushered in the work of writing his Memoirs.

His last winter project lasted until his death in the summer of 1885. The above pictures taken at the cottage in Mt McGregor, New York show the Grant family during his last days.

John Brown — the abolitionist. What does HE have to do with Ulysses S. Grant?

Here is Ulysses Grant’s quote from his Memoirs:

[1810-1812] in a few years [Jesse Grant, Ulysses’s father] returned to Deerfield and worked for, and lived in the family of a Mr. Brown, the father of John Brown—”whose body lies moldering in the grave, while his soul -goes marching on.” I have often heard my father speak of John Brown, particularly since the events of Harper’s Ferry. Brown was a boy when they lived in the same house, but he knew him afterward, and regarded him as a man of great purity of character, of high moral and physical courage, but a fanatic and extremist in whatever he advocated. It was certainly the act of an insane man to attempt the invasion of the South and the overthrow of slavery with less than twenty men…”

We visited the location of the tannery and house where Jesse lived with the Brown family. The house is still in existence, and we are debating whether there is anything left of the old tannery in the two barns that are on the property.

The house used to have double barn doors in the back that opened to a tack room. I could almost hear Owen Brown, John Brown’s father, tapping and working away in that room, which since has been converted to a family room.

We’re back from a tour of U. S. Grant-related historic sites in the United States having to do with the earlier years of Ulysses until 1861:

1861: We visited the Old State Capital in Illinois after seeing Abraham Lincoln’s house in Springfield. Ulysses Grant was hired by Governor Yates in 1861 to help with Civil War recruitment, and had a small office tucked underneath a spiralling staircase at the State House.

1861: Proceeding from the Old State House eastward a number of blocks, we visited the site where Grant had his first command of soldiers–the 21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry. Originally the area was the state agricultural fairgrounds before its conversion to a Civil War military training camp. Today it is a gracious suburb with historic homes. Two memorial plaques commemorate the historic military grounds. One is a plaque on an elementary school building…

…the other object commemorating Grant’s command of the 21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry is a stone obelisk which now stands in a private garden…

pre-1862: Next, we visited the Underground Railroad Museum on the Ohio River waterfront in Cincinnati, Ohio. One of the most memorable items there was an original slave pen previously owned by a slave-trader on the Kentucky side of the Ohio River. This large slave pen was originally located across the river from about Ripley, Ohio, where Grant had gone to school.

1854-: Across the river from Cincinnati, Covington Kentucky sits perched with splendid brick mansions, each more handsome than the last. This is where Jesse Grant and his wife Hannah retired to in 1854. Actually, Jesse still had leather-goods concerns, but retired amiably from his partnership with E. A. Collins in Galena, and was taking steps to pass the torch to his sons. We found Jesse’s house in Covington Kentucky and was able to take a tour of an apartment-for-rent in the building…

1806-1866: Maysville, Kentucky was a delightfully relaxing Southern river town. We found the grave of Ulysses’s uncle Peter Grant in Maysville, see video, above. A number of events happened in Maysville, Kentucky relating to the Grant family. I hope to cover it separately in another post.

1838-1839: With the great exception of the John Rankin House Museum, Ripley Ohio didn’t look as attractive to me as Maysville, Kentucky where we had just left. The downtown area, full of underground railroad and Ohio River history, didn’t seem to emphasize this history or any other advantage–at least what I saw. The downtown, directly on the riverfront, has beautiful potential. ABOVE the downtown area, on top of the mountain, is the spacious grounds and beautifully preserved John Rankin [abolitionist leader] house museum. From this altitude you can view the many steps to downtown Ripley below, and the breathtaking vista of the winding Ohio River and Kentucky. I want to apologize now to any Ripley resident if I missed some highlights of the downtown area. I hope to visit again now that I have the rough location of where Ulysses Grant lived while attending Rankin’s school in 1838-1839. I’ll wait for the publication of the new book on Ulysses S. Grant to tell you why Marion Johnson who boarded Ulysses and his neighbor were of surprising political interest…

1823-1839: We missed the Georgetwon Ohio boyhood home of Ulysses S. Grant by 5 minutes!

1841-1854: Bethel, Ohio: We are still looking for the original location of Thomas Morris’s house, Jesse Grant’s house, and Ulysses’s maternal grandparents house.

Noah Grant is Ulysses Grant’s paternal grandfather. Noah was born in Tolland, Connecticut on June 20, 1748 and his family soon after moved to Coventry, Connecticut, where he was raised.

Noah enlisted in the Revolutionary War, and he returned to news that his wife had died. He traveled west with one of his sons, Peter. His other son Solomon stayed in Connecticut to finish his education. Solomon then traveled to Demerara in Guyana, South America to manage a plantation. He was not heard of again, and it is assumed he died before 1798 of a tropical disease, common at that time.

Noah and his son Peter settled outside of Greensburg, Pennsylvania–sparsely inhabited and wild with plenty of bears. While there, Noah remarried. Noah’s wife Rachel (Miller) and he had a few children before Jesse Root Grant was born. Jesse, Ulysses Grant’s father, was named after politician Jesse Root of Connecticut, who had resided in Noah’s hometown.

Noah was described as a man of great conversational ability, and Jesse Grant also was much given to speech.*

Noah, with his growing family, followed the western expansion along the Connecticut Western Reserve. They moved to East Liverpool, Ohio in 1799, lived in Youngstown, Ohio between 1802-1804, and moved to Deerfield, Ohio in 1804. Rachel Grant died in Deerfield in April 10, 1805, and is buried there. There is mention that her small flax spinning wheel was kept in Deerfield after her death.

The family broke up, and Noah took the two youngest children to live with his son Peter Grant, who by this time was married and a successful businessman in Maysville, Kentucky. Noah Grant died in 1821, a year before Ulysses was born.

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* Church, William Conant, Ulysses S. Grant and the Period of National Preservation and Reconstruction, The Knickerbocker Press, New York 1897. pg. 7

Rev. William Taylor was said to be the superintendent of the school Grant attended in Ripley, Ohio. I questioned if this Taylor could be the famous Rev. Nathaniel William Taylor of New Haven who was close friends with Harriet Beecher Stowe’s father, Rev. Lyman Beecher, then living in Cincinnati.

I read “Nathaniel Taylor, New Haven Theology, and the Legacy of Jonathan Edwards” by Douglas A. Sweeney and wrote to Dr. Sweeney to find out if Rev Taylor could have superintended Ulysses S. Grant’s Presbyterian academy in 1838-1839 — even though Rev Taylor was thought to be in New Haven at the time. Nathaniel William Taylor and Lyman Beecher were best friends — both had graduated from Yale Divinity School, and their friendship continued until death–they are even buried in the same family plot! They were both main characters in the Presbyterian schism in 1837–particularly N. W. Taylor. (See www.americanpresbyterianchurch.org) Reverend Taylor and Beecher helped create the ‘New School Presbyterians’ at the time Grant was attending Ripley’s Presbyterian Academy.

My research so far proves that Rev. William Taylor, superintendent of Grant’s school, was probably NOT the same person as Rev. N. William Taylor, Lyman Beecher’s friend.

An aside: Lyman Beecher’s friend Rev. Nathaniel William Taylor was the next-door neighbor to Lewis Tappan of the Mercantile Agency [precursor to Dun and Bradstreet] who employed U. S. Grant as a credit correspondent before the Civil War. The Tappan brothers financially helped William Lloyd Garrison in his abolitionist activities, and in turn William Lloyd Garrison supported John Rankin, owner of Grant’s school, in his abolitionist activities.

The Tappan’s used their connections in the anti-slavery movement to find credit reporters for the Mercantile Agency. Along with Grant’s father, Jesse, being a radical voice for the anti-slavery movement, Ulysses may have received reference to work for the Tappan brothers from the family of John Rankin, or other anti-slavery connections through his father.

What we want to know is the exact years between 1849-1850s Ulysses Grant was employed with the Tappans. …waiting for an email reply from Dun & Bradstreet.

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Speaking of Cincinnati I just found “The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center”‎ on the google map at 50 E Freedom Way, Cincinnati, OH‎. Worth a trip!